


Worthless

by KuraNova



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Abuse, Other, Physical Abuse, feelings of worthlessness, sibling angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 00:32:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11725800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuraNova/pseuds/KuraNova
Summary: Written for the Chill XV Discord's monthly challenge. Theme: Brother





	Worthless

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Chill XV Discord's monthly challenge. Theme: Brother

“Brother,” Ardyn wheezed, feeling the press of Izunia’s thumb bearing down on his windpipe with the strangled exhalation. 

“How did it happen?” Izunia snarled, his brother’s brow pinched downward angrily as he bared his perfect white teeth. “How the fuck did it happen?”

Ardyn whimpered, insofar as he could manage with the lack of air, and roughly smacked the heel of his hand against Izunia’s forearm in an effort to tell his brother to let up - that he couldn’t answer his question if he couldn’t breathe well enough to form the words. After another angry shove, another rough press of fingers into delicate skin, his brother released Ardyn’s throat. Ardyn sucked in gulps of air, doubling over to fight his body’s exhausted urge to fall to the floor and sleep.

Izunia managed to make that decision for him, however, when he swept Ardyn’s feet out from under him, landing him flat on his back as his head smacked the marble floor of the Citadel throne room with a concerning  _ crack _ . Ardyn idly wondered if that was blood pooling beneath his head, dampening his hair, before Izunia joined him on the floor, kneeling over him like a victorious pugilist.

“Start talking,  _ Your Worthlessness _ , or I will force it out of you. How did you manage to kill all of them?”

Ardyn blinked back tears at the memory, recalling how the crystal refused to obey him, how his magic had sputtered and died and  _ ruined _ any chance he had of saving Izunia’s favored platoon. His most trusted and skilled soldiers, all gone because Ardyn had recklessly assumed that his fading ability to master the strength of the crystal and wield Bahamut’s gift would not have affected him that day. Izunia had been elsewhere, of course, the only reason he even allowed Ardyn the responsibility of commanding his platoon for such a critical maneuver. 

And Ardyn, as ever, had disappointed.

He was the younger brother blessed by the crystal, the unintended king, and the bratty sibling with no head for leadership or rules of state or war. His only skill was that he was good with people. He loved to speak with them, to spend time learning about their histories and their struggles. He loved to help them, heal them, and defend them from what he could. 

Perhaps that made him weak, he thought. At least it had in his brother’s blue, blue eyes. 

“I didn’t know,” he finally managed, grunting as he felt Izunia’s weight press down onto his stomach. “I didn’t know the magic wouldn’t do as I asked.” Ardyn felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t like losing Izunia’s men anymore than his brother did. Those men were people, people Ardyn  _ knew _ and had lived side by side with for years. Did his brother think it easy to see them all slaughtered as he had? Did his brother think it was comforting for Ardyn to know that his blessing from the gods was...what? Wearing out? Seeping away from him? Trickling between his fingers as he tried desperately to hold onto it as the darkness within his soul grew more intense and more demanding every day?

Ardyn was losing himself too, and in a selfish moment of petulant weakness he wondered if Izunia cared at all that he was pushing his brother into the arms of waiting darkness as surely as any daemon could spirit him away. But, Ardyn reasoned, this anger wasn’t about him. Izunia’s anger would always, and forever, be about Izunia. 

“You’ve been slacking,” his brother growled, blue eyes growing hot beneath the shadow of his brow. “Your sloth is costing us Lucis, and for what? So you can grow fat and complacent on your throne healing scraped knees and split lips? What do you  _ actually _ do for Lucis, Ardyn? What have you  _ ever _ done?”

His brother’s words hit close to his heart and settled in the space between his ribs, aching with every labored breath he could muster. These questions were some he had asked himself at times, and the truth of them stung and forced his bottom lip to tremble. He had helped, though. If he got angry enough, he would realize that. Ardyn’s role was one of healer, of peacemaker. He rid their lives of daemons and sickness. 

He  _ helped.  _ He _ did. _

But now, with the magic slipping away from him, with the Astrals falling silent to his pleas for help and his persistent questions about just  _ what _ was happening to him, he wondered if Izunia wasn’t right after all. If, after all of the time and energy he had put into making the lives of those around him better, he had really made any difference at all.

“I tried,” he uttered, weakly, at the end of a silent sob where his voice broke and the wet warble to his words made his fear, and his anguish, all the more evident. “Izunia, I tried. I- I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Izunia hummed, a disbelieving scoff stirring the hair at Ardyn’s brow as his brother lifted away from him, not bothering to offer him a hand up. “Well figure it out. Lucis doesn’t have time to babysit useless runts like you, magic or no.” His brother looked away from him then, breaking the heated connection between their gazes as if he’d snapped a tense string against Ardyn’s skin. “Maybe the gods have finally realized just how weak and worthless you really are.” 


End file.
